Driver hell means no easy real GNU Linux and upgrade limits on future kernels.
We might be in driver hell with N900 blobs but at least it is mostly GNU Linux with some non-free stuff.
Even with Lineage or Paranoid we are still stuck in driver hell with no payoff in being easy to port regular Linux stuff over.
That said sometimes I need a browser I choose Chromium so I use LineageOS on a BT tethered tablet, F-droid repositorities instead of G-Play. If I have to I will use apkmirror for free apps which is run by androidpolice though I know it is as good as asking for malware, but less creepy than Google Play.